The present invention relates generally to thermal tabletop and industrial printers with radio frequency identification (RFID) read/write capabilities. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a high speed tabletop and industrial printer with integrated high speed RFID encoding and verification at the same time.
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are electronic devices that may be affixed to items whose presence is to be detected and/or monitored. The presence of an RFID tag, and therefore the presence of the item to which the RFID tag is affixed, may be checked and monitored by devices known as “readers” or “reader panels.” Readers typically transmit radio frequency signals to which the RFID tags respond. Each RFID tag can store a unique identification number. The RFID tags respond to reader-transmitted signals by providing their identification number and additional information stored on the RFID tag based on a reader command to enable the reader to determine an identification and characteristics of an item.
Current RFID tags and labels are produced through the construction of an inlay which includes a chip connected to an antenna applied to a substrate. The inlay is then inserted into a single tag or label. These labels or tags are then printed by either conventional printing processes, such as flexographic processes, and then variable information may be printed either with the static information or singularly. The chips are then encoded in a printer which has a read/encoding device or separately by a reader/encoding device. With the final step to verify the RFID data that has been encoded to ensure the accuracy. This method is slow and costly due to multiple steps that are involved in the manufacture of the product. In addition, such a method can only be accomplished typically one tag or label at a time per lane of manufacturing capability. This can result in higher cost, limited output, and limited product variation in terms of size, color, and complexity.
Thus, there exists a need for an RFID printer that is capable of both printing on record members, such as labels, tags, etc., and capable of encoding, or writing to and/or reading from an RFID transponder contained on the record member, as well as verifying the data encoded to the RFID tags.
The present invention discloses a high speed tabletop and industrial printer with integrated high speed RFID encoding and verification at the same time. The industrial printer comprises two RFID reader/writers that are individually controlled, such that the industrial printer can encode and verify at the same time. Specifically, one of the RFID reader/writers encodes RFID tags while the web is moving; and the second RFID reader/writer verifies the data encoded to the RFID tags. It is recognized that for a variety of reasons the RFID encoder may not be able to encode during the time the inlay while the web is moving. These include but are not limited to utilizing multiple sections of the memory on the RFID transponder or the transponders are spaced very close together on the web.